


Steady and Holding

by eternaleponine



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:52:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Kaidanovskys hold the record for the longest, most stable neural handshake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steady and Holding

**Hour 0**

When the alarm went off signaling activity in the breach, it was Cherno Alpha's duty shift.

It was also lunch time.

"Damn it," Sasha grumbled, on her feet already even as she tried to figure out what, if any, of her food could be made portable. She sighed and shook her head, grabbing a few more bites before nudging Aleksis (who was doing the same thing, but that wasn't a surprise) and making their way to hangar bay to suit up and get out there.

"Which way is it headed?" Aleksis asked one of the support crew.

"They're not sure yet," was the response they received, which wasn't a particularly reassuring one. It meant they might be out there for a while, waiting to see if it headed towards their coast, and if it didn't, whether the jaeger would need to be transported to help out elsewhere. It didn't change their jobs, regardless.

Aleksis glanced at Sasha, who looked back, the corners of her mouth curving up into a smile like she knew what was going on in his head and found it somehow amusing. Maybe she did; they'd been doing this for years and the "Drift hangover" seemed to last longer and longer each time. 

In their armor, they clanked their way into the conn-pod to begin the process that turned two people and one machine into a single entity. Neither of them thought about it much anymore, and neither of them fought it. It was like slipping on your favorite outfit – the one where every piece fit exactly the way you wanted it to. 

"Initiating neural handshake..."

Flashes of memories, and so many of them were shared because they'd lived them together. Fewer and fewer were from the time before they'd known each other, because that time mattered less and less. 

"Neural handshake steady and holding."

It was like coming home.

 

**Hour 2**

They waited. They waited for an attack that might not come, for action that might never materialize. They received periodic updates from LOCCENT command, but mostly they were left alone because there was nothing to report. 

They were used to the silence. They preferred it.

They kept Cherno where she was, feet planted, at rest because there wasn't anything to patrol for yet, not anything close enough to worry about, and why waste energy when it wasn't necessary? They might need it later.

But waiting could be just as exhausting. They couldn't sit down while strapped in, and the ability to relax wasn't one either of them had been born with in any great quantity, and when it was your job to stand sentry against aliens that wanted to destroy your world, well... you didn't let down your guard much. 

Out here, boredom could be just as much of an enemy as the kaiju.

"Cards?" Aleksis asked.

"Your deck or mine?" Sasha replied, her scarlet lips tilting into a smirk. 

Aleksis laughed. "Mine."

"Spoilsport."

It had started as an experiment years ago, in the middle of a long cold night spent waiting for a threat that never came. The deck was entirely in their heads. At first Aleksis had thought that Sasha couldn't keep track of the cards, what had been played and what hadn't, as the deck seemed to have a few too many trump cards. It had taken him a few hands before he realized that no, she was just cheating, and not even being terribly subtle about it. 

With anyone else, it would have made him angry, but with Sasha it only made him smile. There was no malice in it, after all. She saved that for the kaiju now, and occasionally for the bureaucrats who tried to stick themselves in where they didn't belong, telling them how to do a job that they would never in a million years be capable of doing themselves.

It kept their minds active, playing games even as they kept an eye on the readings and an ear on the channel that linked them back to their support team. It had also taught them that it was possible to hold things back from each other, even in the Drift. Not that they did. Not anything that mattered. 

 

**Hour 7**

"Kaiju headed your way. Category 3. Slow-moving. Be prepared."

They straightened up in their harnesses, flexing legs and arms, making sure that everything was working not just in their bodies but in Cherno Alpha's as well. Eyes flicked across the various displays, taking in the information and processing it faster than even they would have thought possible when they first set foot in the conn-pod. 

Everything checked out okay, which meant it was just more hurry-up-and-wait until they got word that the kaiju (which had no name that they'd been given, and they didn't care what it was called anyway). Sasha had once suggested that they call all of them Stupid Ugly Bastard, but Aleksis had pointed out that it likely wasn't going to go over well on any official reports. 

"Why not?" she'd asked. "Afraid that the ones reading it might think we were talking about them?"

Not that she had a problem with authority, exactly. She followed orders when the orders made sense, and when they were given by someone she respected. But respect had to be earned with her; it wasn't given freely. 

 

**Hour 10**

Sasha could feel the tension building in Aleksis, like a volcano about to erupt. He was frustrated, tired of inaction, and it was starting to get to him, starting to edge out reason and replace it with anger and the urge to do violence for violence's sake.

She couldn't let that happen. It wasn't that she wasn't frustrated; she was. Frustrated and hungry and her muscles were starting to ache from staying in one place for too long. "Let's walk."

There was nowhere to go, nothing to move toward or away from, but they lifted their feet and shifted their arms, one step and then another, pushing through the water as they paced a little ways down the coast and back again. 

"How long are they going to leave us out here doing nothing?" Aleksis growled. His fingers flexed, and Cherno's with them, ready to lash out at any enemy that had yet to make an appearance anywhere even remotely within striking distance. 

"As long as it takes," Sasha told him. "It's what we do, and we're good at it." It was a gentle reminder, but there was nothing yielding in her tone. 

Aleksis could feel the points of the words, the slightly sharp edges, and they set in his skin like barbs, hooked him like a fish, and he had a choice. He could fight against them, or he could allow himself to be reeled in and let her remove them.

There were no words; they didn't need any. They both knew what he would choose every time.

 

**Hour 12**

"We're moving you." 

The words came from LOCCENT command, the first in hours, and it was a relief. It meant that something was happening. Maybe they would finally get the chance to hit something, to release the pent-up energy that had been building since the alarm sounded... what was it? Half a day ago now. It was midnight or a little past, and the world was steeped in inky blackness. It must be overcast; they couldn't see the stars. But it usually was these days, with the atmosphere choked with nuclear fallout. 

_I don't remember the last time I saw stars._

Neither of them was entirely sure whose head the thought came from, but as the helicopters flew up and prepared them to be relocated, they both searched their minds for the answer.

It was tempting to try and make up a memory, but somehow this time it didn't seem like much fun. It was another game they played sometimes, when it was just them and their thoughts and what felt like all the time in the world. They'd started by trying to lie to each other, coming up with memories of things that had never really happened, along with ones that had, and making each other guess which was the fabrication. It hadn't taken long, though, before they could feel the falseness of a thing too easily, and had instead started embellishing actual memories, sometimes competing to see who could create the most outlandish, far-fetched (and yet still rooted in reality) memory. 

_Do you think we'll ever...?_

It wasn't a train of thought worth following. It wouldn't lead anywhere good.

 

**Hour 14**

"Damn it," Sasha snarled. They were in no state to pursue the kaiju, and she was pretty sure that it hadn't gone off to curl up and die somewhere. They'd done damage – _a lot_ of damage – but not enough to kill it. Not enough to end this once and for all.

And Aleksis was hurt. She could feel it. It was his leg, mostly, and up into his ribs. The thing had charged them and they hadn't been able to get out of the way. They'd managed to get their fists on it, send a shock through that sent it back into the deep, but she knew without being told that it wasn't gone for good.

His breath hissed as he gritted his teeth, trying to move and shake out the pain, but of course his leg was Cherno's leg and it might upset the jaeger's somewhat precarious balance. She took in the damage reports, analyzing them as objectively as she could with her husband's pain echoing through her body. 

They could still fight. That's what it came down to. They were hurt, and it would make everything a little more difficult, but they could still fight.

"Aleksis," she said. "Give it here."

He hesitated, but everything was easier when they shared it. Even pain. That was the whole point. So he stopped trying to clamp down on the pain, stopped trying to keep it all to himself, and Sasha let out a deep, shuddering breath as it settled into her own skin.

"Thank you," she said, and wondered if anyone other than a jaeger pilot could ever understand why she would say such a thing.

 

**Hour 16**

"Coming up again on the left!"

Sasha had been right. The kaiju hadn't retreated back to the breach. It had only taken a little time to regroup and now it was back. 

They raised their fists, plunging them into the water where the kaiju was coming in low, aiming for their already injured leg. The jolt they sent through it stopped its advance, sent it into retreat, its trajectory wobbly. This time, though, they followed. This time they would make sure that it didn't get away.

The battle seemed to go on forever. Time lost its meaning even as the sky lightened around them again, signaling a new day, and it would be a day with one less monster in the world if they had any say in the matter. 

Finally, as the sun crept over the horizon, the thing stopped moving. Maybe it was just too stunned to do so, but they made quick work of ensuring the kill, and sagged back in their harnesses as much as they would allow and still keep Cherno upright.

The looks on their faces as they turned to each other were exhausted elation. They waited for their recovery team as they watching the sky paint itself in muddled shades of dawn. 

 

**Hour 19**

"Straight to medical," they were told as soon as the harnesses were released. 

They shook their heads, the action as precisely simultaneous as it would have been if they were still in the Drift. "Post-mission checklist," Sasha said.

"Your crew can do it."

"We do it," Aleksis told him. "We always do it."

"You've been out there for—"

"Almost nineteen hours," Sasha said. "We know. We're fine."

They weren't fine. They weren't anything close to fine, and they did need medical attention for the injuries they sustained, but that wasn't why they were being summoned. No one had ever sustained a neural handshake for eighteen hours before, and _that_ was what they were going to be interested in, _not_ the usual injuries that came from going a few rounds with a kaiju. 

They weren't interested in being guinea pigs. Mostly, they were interested in breakfast. But first they had a jaeger to attend to. They trusted their crew, but it still felt wrong to just walk away from it without their usual post-op rundown. 

Which is how they ended up drinking coffee and stuffing their faces while sitting at the feet of Cherno Alpha, handing each other tools without being asked, knowing each other's next moves without so much as a glance. It wasn't the first time, but when they finally did catch each other's eyes, it wasn't difficult to guess (if they were guessing at all) what the other was thinking: Is this how it's going to be now?

Exhaustion finally won out, and they retreated to their quarters without bothering to stop in medical first. They undressed and dropped into bed, settling into and against and around each other in the way that had long since become habit.

"I remember," Aleksis said. 

Sasha smiled. "That's good." She traced her fingers through his hair, smoothing it back at the temple. "Dream it to me."

Neither of them had any doubt that he would.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [themarginistoosmall](http://themarginistoosmall.tumblr.com/>themarginistoosmall</a>%20for%20the%20Jaegercon%20Gift%20Exchange.) for the Jaegercon Gift Exchange.


End file.
